First Visit Continued

Continuing on

After we left Sonia´s auntie´s home, we drove back to the community center to drop the other lady off. She was really sweet and smiled all of the time she was with us. I think that she was a relative  as well as a CI volunteer, but forgot to ask what her relationship was. I can´t really explain the poverty that I saw as we travelled down the road dodging in and out of cars and pedestrians, wagons, ect. It is so overwhelming with people everywhere on the street, busy, constantly moving. We passed a place that Gabriel said was a bullfighting area where people were killed and then we passed a dirty creek that had garbage in it.  Gabriel said that children swam in this creek. I just could not imagine it.

But we arrived safely at another center closer to downtown Cartagena and as I came in, I recognized Yiseth who was sitting with her younger brother, Nelson and their auntie. I don´t think that Yiseth recognized me at first because I had on shades. She was a little more reserved and nervous, which I sensed  she might be, from looking at her last photos. I think that the thought of meeting her sponsor was a little overwhelming,  but she began to relax after  we went upstairs to get acquainted and to pass out gifts.  We needed this time together alone because we were not sure because of all of the delays whether or not we would make it to Yiseth´s home. Sonia and her auntie were going to catch a taxi to the  mall and catch up with us there,  because we only had the CI truck today,  and there was not enough room for everyone.
As I did with Sonia, we looked at the flip book first, showing her the very first photo that I saw of her which was the one that made me decide to sponsor her. She enjoyed looking at the photos and then we located her continent and country on the globe and then found where I lived. I told her just as I had told Sonia, how I travelled by train from NC to Florida, close to Miami, and caught the plane from there to Cartagena. She was familiar with Miami. I reminded her that one reason I came to visit was because she asked me to come and she really brightened up then. She said that she still wanted to be a pediatrician and loves biology. By the way, as we were opening gifts, a few of young male workers for CI, I think,  had gathered around to observe and enjoy.

Next it was off to the mall and the first thing we did was eat lunch! We went to the food court and everyone ordered what they wanted. The girls wanted chicken fingers and Nelson, Gabriel, and I ordered a delicious pizza. The aunties and the driver sat at another table and ordered something else.  Sonia´s auntie apologized for being an extra mouth to feed but I explained that it was okay! Everyone ate to their heart´s content especially Nelson, who is such a cutie and his own person. Whenever we asked what he wanted, he said ´´EVERYTHING!´´´I would love to sponsor him but will have to settle for sending him things along with Yiseth, unless someone else wants to sponsor him. He is a little gem.i did not need to worry about whether or not Sonia and Yiseth would get along because they were having the neatest conversations in Spanish as we waited for food. I´ll post videos of these later. They were also walking hand in hand together at times and several times the three of us would walk together hand in hand.

After eating to their hearts content, the kids were ready to ride and play games but we were too early and needed to wait about 30 minutes, so we went into stores to pass the time. They were all mesmerized by 3 videos of Michael Jackon playing simultaneously on big screen tv´s. Yiseth  and Nelson especially loved Thriller. And I am serious, even the  aunties, the driver , and Gabrielle were mesmerized! Videos showing this coming!

Well after this, we made it over to the games section. Yiseth and Nelson played games but Sonia only wanted to go on the huge water slide. So while they played games, everyone cheered the siblings on. They won lots of tickets as they are pretty good throwers. Once we got over to the rides, unfortunately, the water slide was closed for maintenance which was a big disappointment for Sonia, because she was unable to ride anything else because of her height. So Yiseth and Nelson rode a couple of rides and Miss Sonia ate Doritos which she seems to love!

Grocery shopping was after that  and the families were so appreciative of this. I am happy that they have a little food in the home right now. One family also needed some kitchen supplies which they were able to get. Sonia was also able to pick out a little gift since she did not get to ride anything, which to my surprise was a little Winnie the Pooh bear which she held lovingly. We explained everything to Yiseth, plus she and Nelson had so many tickets that they were keeping to use when they returned, to purchase toys. So everyone was very happy with everything. We said our good byes and they both promised to write, study hard in school. Nelson promised to study hard also and then Yiseth and her family took a taxi home and Sonia and her auntie caught the bus home.

This was one of the greatest experiences I have had. I hope that one day you can visit your child if you haven´t. You will cherish for the rest of your life and so will your child. It was just so sad to see the stark contrast between the beautiful mall and the terrible living conditions of these families. It is really heartbreaking.

I hope to post the photos and videos when I can get my little notebook to work better here. Tomorrow it is off to meet Francisco and his siblings. This will be very interesting because Francisco does not really know me,  but he knows that there is a group of people sponsoring him. We´ll see how things go! God bless and thanks for reading!